Takumi Minamino was delighted to return to Anfield as Liverpool faced AS Monaco for Sunday’s pre-season friendly.

The Japan international spent two-and-a-half years with the Reds after joining in January 2020, making 55 appearances and scoring 14 goals.

During his time at Liverpool, Minamino won the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup. Now a Monaco player, he missed the 3-2 victory over his former club through injury but was thrilled to revisit the stadium.

“I’m very happy to be back here. For me, this is a very special place,” Minamino told Liverpoolfc.com.

“I have a lot of special memories. But for me, one of the best memories was against Leicester City, the cup game (in December 2021).

“We were losing 2-3 and I scored the equalising goal. A cross from (James) Milner and I scored. And we won on penalties.

“That game, for me, is one of the best memories, with the fans.”

A former gang leader goes on trial Monday in Las Vegas over the decades-old murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, one of America’s most high-profile unresolved murders.

The proceedings, expected to last a month, will likely not make clear who fired the shots that killed the hip-hop legend on the night of September 7, 1996, while he was in Sin City to see a Mike Tyson boxing match.

But prosecutors aim to show that the defendant, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, the onetime leader of the South Side Compton Crips, ordered the killing and provided the gun used to kill Shakur in a drive-by shooting.

Davis, 63, faces life in prison without parole if convicted.

The killing of Shakur, also known as 2Pac, is one of America’s most celebrated cold cases, prompting endless debate among music fans over who did it and why.

The rapper, who died at age 25, was a key figure in a hip-hop rivalry pitting the East Coast against the West Coast.

Known for hits like “California Love” and “All Eyez on Me,” Shakur — the son of a Black Panther — was raised in Harlem and Baltimore, but quickly became the epitome of a California bad boy when he signed with Los Angeles-based Death Row Records.

The trial will revisit the battle between Death Row, founded by Marion “Suge” Knight, and Bad Boy Records, the East Coast label created by Sean “Diddy” Combs and starring Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace (murdered in March 1997).

Prosecutors say Death Row Records was protected by Mob Piru, a Los Angeles gang that was part of the wider Bloods alliance. Knight was affiliated with the group.
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Bad Boy Records had hired the rival group South Side Compton Crips, led by Davis, as bodyguards.

After the Tyson fight at the MGM Grand casino, Knight and Shakur beat up Davis’s nephew, Crips member Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, in retribution over an alleged assault of a Death Row employee.

Davis was out for revenge, the prosecution says.

Later that night, a white Cadillac carrying Davis, Anderson and others pulled up beside Shakur’s car in Las Vegas. Shots were fired from the Cadillac, and Shakur was fatally wounded.

The investigation sputtered for decades because of a lack of evidence, but the cold case was revived with the publication in 2019 of Davis’s memoirs.

In that book, Davis recounted that he was in the front seat of the Cadillac and that he handed a pistol to those in the back seat. But he does not say who opened fire on Shakur. Everyone else who was in the Cadillac that night has since died.

These compromising revelations were consistent with remarks Davis had made previously to reporters. But this time, they came back to haunt him, and he was arrested in September 2023.

Davis has since backtracked and pleaded not guilty.

“I’m innocent. I ain’t killed nobody. Never did ever kill nobody,” Davis said in March 2025 in an interview from prison with ABC News. “They don’t have no evidence against me. They can’t even put me in Las Vegas.”

Davis now says he was in Los Angeles the night of the Shakur killing and that he has never even read his own memoirs. He asserted that these were inflated by his co-author to generate book sales.

“I just gave him details of my life,” Davis said. “And he went and did his little investigation and wrote the book on his own.”

In the run-up to the trial, Davis’s lawyers tried in vain to keep the book from being introduced as evidence, along with remarks he made in an interview with police in 2008 as a witness to the killing.

The proceedings will open with jury selection, which is expected to take a week.

Whatever the verdict is, it is unlikely to satisfy those close to Shakur.

In May, the rapper’s stepbrother Maurice Shakur filed a wrongful death lawsuit in civil court.

“There remain individuals who were involved in Tupac’s murder who, for 30 years, have not been held accountable for their crimes,” his complaint says.

The suit cites a recent TV documentary mini- series entitled “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” in which Davis says in an interview with police that Combs, now in prison himself, offered him $1 million to kill Shakur.



AFP

Don Nelson, who won the second-most games of any coach in NBA history and five NBA titles as a player with the Boston Celtics, died on Sunday, his family announced. He was 86.

Nelson was a member of NBA championship teams with Boston from 1966 to 1976 and the Celtics retired his jersey number 19.

As a coach, Nelson finished with a record of 1,335-1,063 — what had been an NBA record until Gregg Popovich passed him in 2022 — in stints with Golden State, Milwaukee, New York and Dallas from 1976 to 2010.

“Don Nelson revolutionized NBA basketball through his fearlessness, ingenuity and deep conviction,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement.

“He spent nearly 50 years in the NBA -– winning five championships as a player with the Boston Celtics before building one of the most successful and pioneering coaching careers in league history.

“He brought an unmistakable personality to everything he did, and his impact on our sport will continue to be felt for generations.”

Nelson, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012, never reached the NBA Finals as a coach but was remembered as a historic figure among bench bosses.

“The Golden State Warriors mourn the passing of Hall of Fame head coach Don Nelson,” the team said in a statement.

“‘Nellie’ was one of the most innovative and influential coaches in NBA history and an iconic figure in Warriors history…

“More than anything, Don Nelson will be remembered for his authenticity, larger-than-life personality, and incredible passion for basketball and his influence on the Warriors franchise will endure for years to come.”

Steve Kerr, the current Warriors coach, recalled Nelson as a visionary whose influence remains with the modern era of the league.

“Don Nelson was a true innovator whose influence on the game of basketball is still felt today,” Kerr said.

“He consistently challenged conventional thinking, experimented with different lineups and styles of play, and saw possibilities in the game that others often did not.

“So much of what is now commonplace in the modern NBA can be traced back to the way Nellie approached the game.”

The Celtics paid tribute to Nelson’s playing career in a statement.

“Nellie was a tough and reliable all-around player whose tenacity and ability to ‘think the game’ was on full display throughout his 11 seasons with the Boston Celtics, where he was a key member of five championship teams across two eras,” the Celtics said.

The Bucks paid tribute to Nelson’s first NBA coaching stint.

“During his 11 seasons as Bucks coach from 1976-1987, Nellie won two of his three NBA Coach of the Year awards and established himself as one of the most innovative and visionary leaders in basketball history,” the Bucks said.

The Dallas Mavericks called him an innovator and legend whose “impact will never be forgotten,” saying he left “an incredible mark on our franchise and the game of basketball.”